The Karnataka Bengali Kalyan Samiti, which helps Bengal workers in the city, reported that more than 9400 West Bengal migrant workers who lived in Bengaluru had returned home after they received Special Intensive Revision notices.
The affected families who came from Nadia and Murshidabad districts said that the notice deadlines prevented them from gathering money needed to travel. Many workers needed to take salary advances from their employers so they could travel back to their homes. The workers raised two issues because they wanted to know how their verification would be done while they also reported that their work stoppage would result in lost wages and they needed to wait for an unknown time before they could return.
Procedural Pressure Forces Migration
Workers said they began receiving SIR notices after January 14. “Our employers informed us that if we do not return to our home districts and complete verification, our entries would be marked unresolved during the SIR process,” said Binek Pandit, a barber in Bengaluru. He added that unresolved entries could be excluded from the draft electoral rolls if doubts remained during the revision stage.
Many workers claimed notices were mainly issued to men, often the primary earners, even when entire families live together in Bengaluru. The discrepancies cited in the notices included address continuity issues, absence from older voter rolls, and gaps in family linkage records. Migrant workers who move between their home country and their destination country for seasonal employment or permanent employment will experience these irregularities.
Political Help and Flight Arrangements
Multiple migrant workers reported that West Bengal political leaders helped them return home by providing flight ticket arrangements. Reshma Banu from R.R. Nagar said that a local politician booked her flight to Kolkata which she used to travel by train to Nadia. She added that this support enabled many workers to meet the verification deadline despite the short notice.
Comparisons to 2019 CAA–NRC Migration
The ongoing situation which exists today has been compared by Reshma Banu to the CAA and NRC protests that took place in 2019. She observed that workers today follow a different pattern because they tell their employers about their planned absences.
Personal Stories of Uncertainty
Saheb Ali Sheikh, a cook from Nadia district, said only he and his brother received the notice, even though nine family members live in Bengaluru. The family moved to the city five years ago as part of a group of around 100 workers and has been employed continuously since then. Sheikh said he had all required documents but was given a deadline of January 26 to respond. Unable to arrange travel quickly, he managed to reach Nadia only on January 25, after taking an advance from his employer.
Another worker, Sahreef Ul Sheik, who runs a garage in Balagere, said he submitted all documents during verification but was told inclusion of his name depended on record consistency. The 2002 voter list showed his grandfather’s name but it did not show his father’s name. Sheik traveled by train from Bengaluru to Howrah and then by bus to Nadia which took more than 36 hours.
